


All Eyes

by humansandotherpeople



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Acceptance of the Inevitability of Change, Established Relationship, Eye Horror, Healthy? Relationship?, M/M, Screenplay/Script Format, Season/Series 04 Spoilers, The Inevitability of Change, Too Much Apologizing, and other such horror concepts, now with an illustration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-12-24 20:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21105830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humansandotherpeople/pseuds/humansandotherpeople
Summary: Statement of Martin Blackwood regarding... the eyes I've apparently grown overnight. Statement taken direct from subject on January 13th, 2019.





	1. Chapter 1

[Click.]

[Two sets of slow, peaceful breathing.]

[The wet sound of eyelids that have never been opened before peeling apart.]

[The breathing continues. One set of breaths stays steady, while the other becomes more irregular and is eventually superseded by snuffling and then MARTIN BLACKWOOD's voice.]

MARTIN: Mmmmnm?

What are you looking a... Wha...? Jesus Christ, what?!

[JONATHAN SIMS grunts, after which his regular breathing resumes.]

MARTIN: Okay. Okay. Can you... See me through that? Are you awake? No, I guess not. God, can you close it? Please? Can I... I guess asking really has no point. Jon, I'm going to... No, wait, I should really wake you up, shouldn't I?

[He clears his throat rather loudly, but there is no change to Jon's breathing rhythm.]

MARTIN: Jon, I don't want to pull the blanket out from under you. I'm going to wrap a bandage around this... eye.

[Rustling.]

MARTIN: Maybe it's good? That you aren't awake for this?

[Rustling continues.]

MARTIN: Ha, I've never been grateful before that you get injured so often that I keep gauze on the bedside table.

[Rustling continues.]

MARTIN: I lied. I'm not really glad.

[Scissors snip.]

MARTIN: There you go.

[Pause.]

MARTIN: Maybe, just maybe I can go back to sleep like this. And we can deal with this thing in the morning.

[The same eye opening sound as before, only about ten times in a row this time.]

MARTIN, almost whimpering: No. No, no, nononono...

[Another quiet eye opening sound.]

MARTIN, panicking and getting louder: I can't, I can't cover them all up, Jon, please, just wake up, Jon?!

JON: Hrng.

MARTIN: I'm so sorry for waking you, but, but, I can't...

JON: What's... Where...

MARTIN, quietly: Sorry...

JON, his voice rising in pitch and volume, and accompanied by soft crackling: Why does the room look like that? Why do _you_ look like that!? Why am I blindfolded? Why can I still see while I'm blindfolded? Martin, take your hands out of my eyes! What's going on?

MARTIN, squeaking and stumbling over his words while trying to answer all questions at once: Eyes! A whole bunch of them. I don't know, Jon, they just grew, I thought if I could hold them shut you could focus, can you... can you close them? Yes, thank you, oh god I'm so glad you're in control of them, I mean, that's your actual eyes as well, I mean your old eyes, I mean your original eyes, but that's so much better, thank-

JON: Martin.

MARTIN: Gosh, sorry for rambling.

JON: No, my fault, I asked, and I should be sorry, really, but what actually– I mean. I would appreciate it if you told me what actually happened. Just. Appreciate. Sorry.

MARTIN: I don't, I don't know if I can get it all out in like. Any kind of coherent way, because I'm kind of freaked out, and it just happened and... I think it would be easier if you asked, to be honest.

JON: I don't know if that's...

MARTIN: I could even make it a statement. Oh look, it's already recording. [He chuckles.] Couldn't bear to miss my shrieking, I guess. Just do your thing, and, and, you'll feel better afterwards, and I'll have got it all out.

JON: You sure?

MARTIN: Yes.

JON: Okay. Okay. Statement of Martin Blackwood regarding... the eyes I've apparently grown overnight. Statement taken direct from subject on January 13th, 2019. Statement begins. Martin, were they already there when you woke up?

MARTIN: Yes. At least one of them was.

It's a statement, so I'll start at the beginning. We've been sleeping together for two months now... Sleeping together in a queerplatonic sense I mean, in a way I hope is respectful of your sexuality, or lack thereof.

JON: Martin...

MARTIN: Shh, Jon, you take my statement, you also have to let me give my statement, you know?

JON: I just wanted to give you an out. You can save the relationship talk until you're not under a compulsion, _you_ know.

MARTIN: Let me give my statement. It's not like you asked me how I feel about you. And even if you did... Well, anyway.

I guess I've been expecting to wake up to you just watching me for all that time. I always wondered whether it could be a cute thing with you, if you could watch me because you like looking at me, not because you _need_ to watch. But that never happened. You usually wake up later than me. If anything, I've been staring at you. Not in an Eye way, I don't think. You're just so beautiful, and you're right there.

And there you were staring at me when I woke up just now. And I felt bad for being spooked by it, because I've really done it more, considering... considering. And then I noticed your back was turned to me, and the eye was in your shoulder. Where Melanie got you with the scalpel. And I tried to cover it up with gauze because, well, you were asleep, and you shouldn't have an eye open while you're asleep, no matter where it is. Though maybe you, specifically, should. I don't know. I didn't know. I was pretty certain it was... yours, though, not something else's. Mainly because it looked so much like your eyes. Your nor... I mean, the ones I'm used to.

And I just about had it wrapped up so far it couldn't stare at me any more, when other ones started opening. Where you had scrapes from inside the coffin. And where we got the worms out, the ones from Jane Prentiss. And scars where I don't even know where you got them from. And... I haven't looked at it properly, because you were lying on it. But show me your hand? No, the other one, the one Jude Perry burned. Oh. Oh, that's more than I thought. Open it? Yes, there's even more. So you currently have about twenty eyes, mostly on your back and legs and on that hand.

So those were all suddenly there, and, and, they weren't blinking enough, and I'm used to that from the ones on your face, I guess that includes the cheek one too now, I mean the ones that were already there yesterday. But...

JON: Wait, are you... Just checking that you're saying that I haven't been blinking lately.

MARTIN: Maybe every two minutes or so.

JON: Oh.

[Pause.]

MARTIN: Anyway, when I freaked out and couldn't deal with it without you any more and thought you had to know and woke you up, you were disoriented and all of them seemed to try to focus on different things, and also I was frankly feeling a bit capital W Watched so I told you to close them and you did and you haven't opened them since and now I'm afraid that when you do, it won't be you looking out any more. Not even out of the old ones. Even though, with the first one, I kind of thought it was beautiful. Because, like I said, it was yours. And as far as I could tell, so were the others. At least before you closed them.

JON, breathing in deeply: Thank you for your Statement. [Pause.] Please don't be alarmed, I'm going to try opening one of them.

MARTIN: Oh. Okay. Thanks for warning me.

[Jon holds his breath while he methodically opens, then closes, one eye after another. Twenty-two in all.]

JON, chuckling: Yes. Yes they're mine.

MARTIN: Yes. They look like it.

JON: Also, it seems I'm the same amount of short-sighted in all of them.

MARTIN: Oh, really?

[A snort.]

JON: Yeah. Really. I'd need some very weirdly shaped glasses to actually use them properly.

MARTIN: Are you... okay? Did it hurt when they... appeared?

JON: If it did, I slept through it.

MARTIN: Oh, yeah, I forgot.

JON: Just a bit disoriented, like you said. Not used to the angles. I don't think I'll be opening all of them at once any time soon. Though maybe I'll grow a visual cortex to match them and then it'll make more sense. Are you okay?

MARTIN: I mean, spiders can be cute with many eyes.

JON: Oh, come on.

MARTIN: Sorry, sorry.

JON: It's okay. I mean, if you're okay with it, maybe it really is okay. Okayer than a lot of the... other things. They're mine, at least for now, and I don't feel any less like myself. Whatever that even means any more. And most of them are on the outside, so I'm not going full Albrecht von Closen. Yet.

MARTIN: Most of them?

JON: I think I can see into my ribcage. Not much, because it's dark, but still.

MARTIN: Oh. [Pause.] Yeah, I think I'm still okay, though.

JON: Thank you, Martin.

MARTIN: Come here. I promise I won't poke any of them out while I'm hugging you.

[Blankets shift and a single bedspring creaks.]

JON: Recording ends.

[Click.]


	2. illustration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hallowe'en update (date is entirely by coincidence): an illustration.

**Author's Note:**

> We stare into the many unblinking eyes of the canon timeline and say "fuck you" like men.


End file.
